LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With more than two-thirds of the global population expected to live in
urban contexts by 2050, the deployment of smart cities technologies and
intelligent transportation services in particular, will become key
policy areas for local governments. By 2025, penetration of ITS
technologies in smart cities will range from 20% (autonomous vehicles)
to 98% (traffic management).

“While numerous smart city projects are currently testing or deploying
multimodal transportation, traffic management, adaptive traffic
signaling, transit ticketing and smart parking payment solutions, the
focus will shift to urban tolling and freight systems to address rampant
congestion and pollution issues, especially in developing regions.
However, more structural approaches based on eMobility, cooperative ITS
and V2I, autonomous vehicles, and widespread adoption of car sharing and
on-demand taxis will be needed by the start of the next decade to cope
with the unstoppable urbanization trend,” says VP and practice director,
Dominique Bonte.

Meanwhile, inter-vertical technologies such as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)
will be required to realize the synergies offered by an urban IoT
strategy. In this respect, it is essential city governments and
technology providers adopt holistic approaches maximizing the combined
effect of technologies within and across the energy, transportation,
communication, education, retail, construction, public services, and
healthcare verticals in order to unlock the full potential of smart
cities in terms of sustainability, quality of life, efficiency, and
economic growth.

Unfortunately, many smart city projects remain fragmented and/or
hijacked for gaining political capital on the back of public funding,
especially in Europe. Other issues include complexity, high costs, lack
of standards, reluctance to share data, and privacy concerns. For the
smart cities conundrum to emerge as a viable concept, it will have to
emancipate and leave its old heritage behind.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of
trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From
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